The present invention relates to an apparatus for processing poultry in which the heads are cleanly severed from the necks at an optimum position in a manner to leave the maximum amount of feather free skin on the necks of the birds without damage to the neck and skin.
Mechanization is utilized to the maximum degree in processing poultry for the market. The birds are normally processed for removal of the feathers, head and other portions while pendulously supported by their feet or legs from shackles that are connected at intervals along an overhead conveyor. Devices of various types have been utilized for automatically removing the heads of the birds as they pass down the processing line. Some of these devices behead the bird by physically pulling the head from the body to obtain separation by a tearing action, of which the devices of U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,737,948 and 3,956,794 are typical. Devices of this type are not too satisfactory since the heads are not always cleanly severed from the neck at the optimum point immediately adjacent the skull. It is generally desirable to sever the head from the bird immediately adjacent the skull so as to leave a maximum amount of neck material, including neck skin, on the body of the decapitated bird. In order to control more closely the point of severance of the head from the neck and maintain a maximum amount of neck material on the body of the bird after the head is severed, other devices move the bird along a processing line to bring the neck of the bird into the path of a rotating cutting blade. Devices of this type commonly employ a neck capturing channel comprising horizontally spaced-apart members that capture the neck and head of the bird and then guide the neck into the path of a cutting blade that is rotating in a horizontal plane immediately above the guide members. Typical of this type of apparatus are the devices shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,924,846, U.S. Pat. No. 3,017,660 and U.S. Pat. No 3,514,809. Although the neck of the bird is usually severed quite close to the skull by devices of the nature of the one illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,924,846, the angle at which the neck is cut varies according to the degree of retardation which varies with neck size and length of the bird. Such devices do not provide the desired degree of consistency in severing the head from the neck as will leave a maximum amount of neck and neck skin on the bird and the point of severance cannot be well controlled. Whereas the rotating helix of the device in U.S. Pat. No. 3,514,809 does tend to pull the skin away from the head and assists in maintaining a maximum amount of skin on the neck of the beheaded bird, contact with the rotating helix tends to bruise and damage the neck of the bird and the device does not cleanly sever heads from the necks of birds of different length at the same optimum point. In the device of this patent the head of a long bird will hang considerably below the level of a head of a short bird. Thus when a long bird enters the neck guiding channel the rotating helix will have to lift the head of the vertically hanging bird a cosiderably greater vertical distance than a shorter bird to bring the heads into contact with the bottom edge of the neck guiding channel which has a tendency to bruise the necks of the long birds which are forced into an S shape as they approach the cutter and does not provide a clean cut. Further, the wings of the longer birds will hang down and become engaged in the helix and cutter and the helix tends to cause the severed heads to clog in the apparatus.